Incursion events are the main risk to your Fortification. You may expect the assault to last 3 hours, fifty-one minutes and to be composed of monsters from the First floor of the dungeon – so between level 24 and 36, with the boss monster at the peak of that level.

Extra awards should you repel them!

Extra Game play if you don't!

- System Guide to Fortifications

Early to bed meant early to rise – with his new body he wasn't one for sleeping in, and woke, bright and refreshed, at what he discovered was four AM. Shrugging, he cast Hygiene – it was better than any shower – and got dressed, grabbing some snacks from the dispenser while he pondered his next move.

Given the numbers they had, they could likely keep levelling, and gaining the experience in combat needed to be able to repel the attack at the end of the month. He'd found it rather strange that it matched so closely to one month since the installation – but Jeeves had pointed out it was three to the power of three Local Orbital Periods: they would be assailed every 27 days.

He felt like he was a completely different person than he was seven days ago, when he woke up with that blinding flash of pain: He couldn't help but wonder what he would be like a year from now, when the Galactics came. Still. He wasn't the same person seven days ago he was the year before: No matter what people thought, it was important to realise that you were always changing, growing, becoming someone new. Framing it like that helped repel the vague sense of self-alienation, and he shook his head to dismiss the residue, and in so doing, decided what to do next.

“Jeeves? A word.” Without delay, the AI shimmered into existence.

“Good morning, Jonathon. There are Twenty one days until the Immunity period ends, and five people have requested permission to respawn in this Fortification.” profiles appeared before him, and after glancing over them, he nodded. “Granted. You've had your minion foundry working for a few days – Where are they?”

“In their storage units, Jonathon.” Jeeves promptly replied, bringing up a map of the core of the Fortification. Having lived here all of five days, the wayout of the Fortification did start to make some sense: In essence, there was the central hall, with doors leading to corridors: each corridor led to one of the rooms, and there were cross-connecting tunnels. Notably, the 'Accommodation' were accessed through multiple portals, but were essentially one room when you looked at the diagram: The four corridors that led to them intersected where they existed.

Marked on the display, there were holding areas every few metres along both sides of the walls of all the corridors, and the main hallway: these were highlighted. “I have capacity for one hundred and forty-four drones in each bay, which are noted here on the display. At present, I only have forty-eight drones, which I am storing in this unit for now.” a bay towards the back of the main hallway flashed on the hologram. “I have three types: Stealth hacking units, of which I have produced nine: Barricade shield units, of which I have as of yet produced twelve: and rapid assault units, which make up the remaining twenty-seven. I am producing them at a rate of twelve per day, so I expect to have this bay full and this bay partially full by the time of the incursion.”

“I can't help but notice that none of them open between the fortification and the fortification wall.” Jonathon noted. “When you say these are defensive drones... How will they help us, exactly?”

“Should the wall be overrun and the Incursion move into phase two, they are the primary mode of defence, Jonathon.” The words made Jon's brow furrow, so he asked Jeeves to expand on that remark.

“Certainly, Jonathon. Phase one is the outer wall, where the Incursion attempts to overwhelm the defenders and the defence turrets, and enter the Fortification. Phase two is when they are fighting to capture the various facilities within the Fortification, and should they have taken them all offline, we enter phase three, where they enter my room and engage in a boss match. Should they be successful, the accommodations are decoupled and the fortification becomes an outpost of the dungeon until recaptured.”

“The Accommodations are 'decoupled'.” Jonathon repeated. “what does that mean, exactly? Do we keep our respawn points? How do we enter or leave?”

“If you have any additional or allied fortifications, Jonathon, they will couple with those. Failing that, they will reconnect with reality at the edge of the Adventure zone, allowing those within to disembark outside the game area.”

He took a few seconds to digest this, making sure his voice was calm when he asked the obvious question. “Hypothetically, if you cannot find an edge to the game area? Say, if the planet was completely covered in the adventure zone?”

“Ah. In that event, Jonathon, the accommodations would disintegrate, all within would lose a respawn and their respawn locations, and would need to petition for access to a new respawn spot.” Jeeves replied. “The dungeon attackers would have the lost respawns appropriated amongst them based on their contribution.”

“Fuck.” was all Jonathon could say to that. “Can you dedicate any more forces to phase one, and the outer defence?” it was a vain hope, but he had to ask.

“Only with a Fighter, Mech, and Vehicle bay, coupled with a superior minion foundry, Jonathon.” the AI said, a little reproachfully. “Which you neglected to purchase at the last round of upgrades. If that is a desire of yours, Jonathon, might I suggest investing in those areas when I next level up?”

“Certainly.” Jonathon replied with a sigh. “Wait. Does this mean we can conquer the dungeon in the same way, if we defeat a floor boss?”

Jeeves chuckled softly. “Of course not, Jonathon. It is the core of adventure! If you want that sort of game, you can invest in a fortification and gift or trade it to the Dungeon controller.” the AI's tone was patient, and lightly amused – his personality was definitely developing.

“Of course.” Jonathon replied, scowling slightly. “What's on the timetable for today?” best to see what everyone else wanted so he could plan around it.

“The Meeting regarding your first excursion, Jonathon.” Jeeves replied. “Colonel Mitchelson has been aggregating reports from each of the teams that went out with his support staff, and will be presenting his conclusions to you and your council.”

Jonathon had been waiting for this – It would be nice to have someone with some experience in the area tell them quite how fucked they were. “Anything else?” he asked, heading towards the door.

“Not as of yet, Jonathon. Do you wish to schedule any meetings?” Jonathon shook his head. “Not yet.” and with that, he headed for the training facility.

Arriving at the facility, he started scrolling through the options, thoughtfully. As it stood, apart from his various magical skills, he didn't have any of the more exotic ones that seemed useful in this new world. So did he double-down and focus on building up what he new already? Or use the instruction option to pick up something new?

He tabled the matter for now, deciding to ask bob for advice, then stopped. Bob was received due to a death perk – He could buy it himself in four ranks. He'd probably need to get Larry to instruct him for a few hours, but he could ask him about that at the meeting. For now, he decided to practice his Magical blades for a few hours.

Sparring with Simulacra for the next four hours built up a sheen of sweat, and taught him more about the blade and how it could be used. Each of the various types of magic had a small array of damage types associated with it – both life and death gave access to 'decay', for example, but life also had mutation and corruption, whereas death had spiritual and necrotic. By focusing on a given type of magic to imbue the blade, it would split the damage equally amongst all the types that magic provided. He could change which type of magic filled the blade with a thought, though it took a few seconds to flow up the blade: This delay, he learned, was based on his skill level.

He even discovered it was possible to push Mana into the blade, to create ethereal material to lengthen it for a quick burst, to make it longer or wider: This all combined to make training with it a very singular experience from what he imagined a normal sword would be like.

By the time the meeting came around, he was up to Initiate 11, just one shy of an additional perk: Making a note to spar with Bea later and show her what he'd learned, he headed to the boss room for the meeting with a quick cast of Hygiene: He was pleased, too, to get the alert that he'd increased his Alacrity to 6 as he left the room.

Entering the meeting room with a tray of snacks he'd snagged from the cafeteria – Caroline had apparently been experimenting with pastries - he found he was one of the last to arrive, sliding the tray onto the table as he took his seat – at the head of the table, With Shawn on his left and Garcia on his right. Colonel Mitchelson was seated at the far end, with a few of his staff, going over paperwork, and he finally rose as Frank strode in and took his seat, snagging one of the small cakes.

“Now that we're all here, this is what we've learned so far.” The colonel began, his tone formal and confident – it was clear he was used to such presentations. “Of the nine teams that set out, only one of them was completely wiped out, though over thirty were killed in the three hour period. The majority by what we are classing as a heavy armoured unit – a Grenadier Rhino. It is apparently heavily armoured, has an automatic grenade launcher with a variety of grenade types, and the horn seems to be strengthened – we estimate it could penetrate any armour we currently have.” he delivered this rather grimly, and proceeded to run down the various monsters they had come across, and toss out ideas for killing them based on the perks they'd found so far – for example, the Vampire that had killed Jonathon, they suggested that every team should include someone with some level of precognition, or perk to detect spatial modulations, to locate their traps: It was likely they could be attacked and dragged out if they missed their target, though there was also the possibility that killing them would require invading their nests.

More concern was for the Skeletal Artillery that had been spotted – From the perspective of the staff officers, it was likely being created and prepared for assaulting their position, to beat down the shield that apparently the fortification could generate, This was news to Jonathon, who scowled upwards. “Jeeves!”

“Ye, Jonathon?” he replied, shimmering into being. “You wish further details on the incursion event?”

“Yes. Please explain to everyone exactly what is involved in the event, what defences you will have, and the phases you walked me through earlier. Assume none of us have read the god-damn manual.”

It turned out that the shield that had appeared when the Fortification was created would instantly reform in the event of any attack: they could attack out of it, and it would absorb all damage. However, it had a maximum capacity of 20,736 Life – after which point, it would shut down for one LOP.

The information on the phases was apparently new to the Army officials, and after a brief conference, they resumed their briefing. “Based on what we now know – We're going to need teams to destroy the Artillery, since we don't have any of our own for counter battery fire. Unless they come within range of the Casting chamber, which is unlikely given what we know of their weapons. We are going to need our strongest offensive casters in the Chamber, and as many people as possible on the walls. However.” there was a solemn pause.

“Based on what we know: The monsters outside are between level Fifteen and Thirty. The monsters that attack will be Between twenty-four and thirty-six, and it will be a continual assault for several hours.” Mitchelson let that sink in for a moment. “To the best of my knowledge, we have at most six people within the fortification who have achieved a class. The location of this Fortification is intended for experienced 'adventurers' on their second class at minimum. Given the power and numbers we expect to face, I do not presently see a way we can win this unless we can massively enhance every single inhabitant of this fortification, to at least level fifteen.”